Doctoring the Truth
Welcome to Doctoring the Truth, a podcast where two dedicated audiologists dissect the world of healthcare gone rogue. Explore jaw-dropping stories of medical malfeasance, nefariousness, and shocking breaches of trust. The episodes provide deep dives that latch onto your curiosity and conscience. It's a podcast for truth-seekers craving true crime, clinical insights, and a dash of humor.
Doctoring the Truth
Ep 38-Ghastly Godmother: The Horrifying Murders of a Night Nurse (Part 1)
A bright Children’s Ward. A reassuring nurse. Then a surge of cardiac arrests, hypoglycemia, and near-fatal collapses that no one could neatly explain. We step inside Grantham and Casteven Hospitals in the early ’90s to trace how a pattern of harm unfolded in plain sight—and how a trusted caregiver leveraged chaos, night shifts, and parental trust to stay close to the sickest children.
Listen now for a careful, victim-centered retelling that honors families, examines systemic gaps, and sets the stage for part two’s legal and forensic outcomes. If this story moved you, share it with a friend, follow the show, and leave a review—your support helps more people find thoughtful true-crime storytelling grounded in healthcare and accountability.
Resources:
www.readersenjoyauthorsdreams.com
BBC - Beverley Allitt Tapes
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Amanda!
SPEAKER_00:Hey, how are you, Alley Cat? That was very exciting, like an entrance to a ball game or something. I know, right?
SPEAKER_01:We're coming out with our I don't know, fighting. She's entering the ring. With our gloves on. Ready to ready to kill this. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So how about last week? How about Shannon? Isn't she awesome? We've gotten so many good comments.
SPEAKER_00:We have uh Shannon, I know you'll be listening to this, but Shannon, I think you've gotten more good compliments than Jonna and I combined, honestly. I know. I'm starting to feel a little insecure. I was I was like, dang, is y'all trying to replace us with Shannon or what's that movie? The Shannon show, right? Oh man. Yeah, right. Shannon, you did an excellent job. Everyone loved you. We can't wait to have you back again sometime because obviously it's happening. It's not even a question at this point. It will happen.
SPEAKER_01:No, it has to. Well, also, we need an update from Shannon. Please write in and let us know how the whole Shazer conversation went. Yes. I wasn't expecting such a wild reaction from her, but that's so funny.
SPEAKER_00:Um she passionately hates nicknames.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Well, see, yeah. I don't know. Passionate, passionate. We love it. Um, and if anyone caught at the end of the episode, Shannon used the words maternity leave. She sure did. She sure did. So well, I guess the cat's out of the bag, Shannon. Everyone, I'm pregnant. We are approaching the third trimester, so I guess you know I'm pretty pregnant.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, you're going to be union. We're so excited.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, thank you. Yeah, so I guess Shannon seems to have elected herself for some maternity leave coverage, should it be needed. Yeah. And if not, she could be a guest.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, yeah. No, we're super excited for you. Now literally, the world knows. The world knows. How does it feel, mama? Ooh, good. She's glowing, she's happy, she's beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:Can't wait.
SPEAKER_01:Can't wait to meet so-and-so. We won't know gender or name, will we? Okay.
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_01:And I'll be at the edge of the bed when you're giving birth with my Auntie Jenna's here. Yeah. Auntie Jenna's here, and I'm gonna screen your hearing. Amanda, move aside.
SPEAKER_00:I know I've been trying to be like super careful when I'm around kids at work and stuff to like prevent the MV. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So well, that's a good one.
SPEAKER_00:And thanks, Shannon, for telling the world I'm five minutes.
SPEAKER_01:No, honestly, thanks, Jennon, because I have a hard time with secrets. And I was like, what if I blurt something out? So she did it on her one guest appearance. What we managed to not do and how many episodes.
SPEAKER_00:So it's been a while. We've known for a long time. Yeah, we have. Yeah. All right.
SPEAKER_01:Well, hey, before we move on. Yeah, before we move on, I want to shout out a new sponsor.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh. Yeah, sorry, pregnancy brain. I can blame that now.
SPEAKER_01:Please go on. Tell us. Shout out to Jillian Tanel. She is my mama. She gave birth to moi. She is sponsoring our podcast on a monthly basis. And we want to thank her. And she has sent a topic for a future episode, which when you sponsor us, dear listeners, you get a shout-out and you get to pick a topic or a story for us to cover. And so if you also want to join Jillian and the others who are generously supporting our show, you can just hit the support us link, which is in purple usually if you're on your Apple Podcast. But it's it's wherever you download an episode, there'll be a link that says support us. So we appreciate you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks, Jillie. That reminds me of one more thing. Someone had messaged Shannon saying that they wished the link to our website was actually a link on our social media because I had just like written it in the caption, and apparently you can't copy and paste from there. So on the Instagram page now, it is added as a link below the bio. If for some reason you don't use Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever else everyone uses, you can click the link to our Buzzsprout website and listen on there.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. Thanks for doing that.
SPEAKER_00:No problem, it's super easy. Okay, so you guys, not gonna sugarcoat this one. It's horrible. It's bad. Bad news bears. And should I just let them know right away? It's gonna be a tupada.
SPEAKER_01:A tupada.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's a tupada.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I mean, sometimes we need when it's a really deep dive and it's a really depressing case, we just need to break it up and absorb and come back. So I can appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:And this also was a very long episode for me. It's like double in length what I usually do for one. So I told Jenna, like, uh, this probably could be a two pata.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. Well, yeah. So what are we talking about?
SPEAKER_00:What are we talking about? Well, should we sponsor first? Sure. Okay. So our first sponsor today is the one and only Quantum Squares, who is redefining energy snacks with scientifically formulated energy bars to provide long-lasting, stable energy without crashes. Developed by scientists, each bar combines whole food ingredients with 100 milligrams of organic caffeine equivalent to an 8-ounce coffee, ensuring a smooth energy boost. These bars deliver balanced nutrition featuring 10 grams of plant-based protein, healthy fats, and complex carbs, making them an ideal choice for active individuals. And this is the part where everyone goes, wow, because quantum squares can literally be enjoyed by everybody because they are certified gluten-free, non-GMO, plant-based, kosher, vegan, dairy-free, soy-free, with no artificial additives or sugar alcohols. They've been endorsed by athletes and fitness enthusiasts. Quantum Squares offers delicious flavors like peanut butter, dark chocolate, and dark chocolate pink Himalayan salt. With over 2,500 five-star reviews, how could you beat that? Customers rave about their taste and effectiveness in combating afternoon slumps and providing clean, consistent energy. Quantum Squares commitment to quality and transparency ensures that each bar is delicious and a healthier, smarter alternative to conventional energy snacks.
SPEAKER_01:Kind of makes me hungry.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I actually just finished eating, so today I mentioned last week that we are heading over to England. And now I just was like, are we in England? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, we're in England. Okay. We are going to be covering Beverly Allett.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I don't know anything about her. No.
SPEAKER_00:Jenna said she'd never heard of her. Yeah. The big trigger warning for this episode is child abuse. As I mentioned, these cases are horrific. So I obviously did not go into detail about some of the things that I could have with, because like we don't need to relive that. And you can always look it up on your own if you want to know more. But I just like felt sick reading some of it. So I was like, we're not going to be able to do that. Yeah, I don't think we need to. It's just enough to get the picture, but we don't need to paint it in high def. All right. Are we ready? Beverly Gale Allett was born on October 4th, 1968, and grew up in the village of Corby Glen, which is just outside of Grantham in Lincolnshire, England. She lived there with her parents, Richard and Lillian, and her three siblings, one brother and two sisters. Her family was a working-class family, her father working in an off-license, and her mother cleaned at a local school. Her childhood was, by all accounts, unremarkable. Beverly was described as a fairly ordinary child initially, doing things such as babysitting for her neighbors. Neighbor and family friend Jeremy Marshall Roberts would describe her childhood as perfectly normal, that Beverly was a happy-go-lucky child who grew up surrounded by a nice family in a normal village. Though certain behaviors would foreshadow serious problems. Neighbors recalled that she'd fall off her bike and cut her leg, and there was, you know, the time she fell on glass. And then she would wear bandages or casts over her wounds that were typically exaggerated, but not allow for them to properly be examined. It doesn't really seem like a total flag, right? Like kids get hurt accidentally.
SPEAKER_01:I I remember being jealous of the kid in class who had a cast that everyone was rallying around to sign and stuff. And I was like, oh, I like that attention. Well, right, right.
SPEAKER_00:But I mean, I didn't break my leg. Like kids love wearing band-aids, so step down from a cast. Even when a boo-boo isn't visible. My niece all the time, I need a band-aid. Like, okay. And then it feels better.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, whole plus adorable. To be fair, they make super cute band-aids now. Like wellies and all kinds of uh cute ones. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And like when she's at my house, I'm like, I will totally get you a band-aid, but you know Auntie's band-aids are ugly.
SPEAKER_01:You really need to need it. Okay. We got old man beige here. Okay. Don't get excited.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, exactly. Orthopedic beige old man my house. So these oddities began to escalate. At one point, she catheterized herself and even went on to inject water into one of her breasts so that it was bigger than. Wait, what? Wait, what what? How old was she when this was happening? I don't know an exact age on those things, but she started doing all these things from a really early age, like six or seven.
SPEAKER_02:Oh gosh.
SPEAKER_00:And she would ex- So, like, even during the time where everyone's like, totally normal, babies at the neighbors. It's like she was already doing these things. Okay, so just everyone.
SPEAKER_01:So this was the early 70s. So it's not like she could YouTube how to catheterize herself. Like she was just right. Oh my goodness. Okay. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And she would experiment with body temperature readings by taking hot water into her mouth before having her temperature taken and like things like that.
SPEAKER_01:You know, Ferris Buller day off kind of thing. Put it on the light bulb and then oh my god, it's 110.
SPEAKER_00:You need a oh my god. Okay, can you even imagine after you just had a 103?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no thanks.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So feigning illness and hurting herself became normal for her. Emphasis on for her. So she was seeking attention rather than genuine care. And she learned early on that feigning illness gets a person a lot of attention, but it also takes the pressure off of a person. She learned that there were less expectations of her when she was ill. But as she got older, she began to frequently visit hospitals, complaining of a wide range of ailments like headaches, backaches, blurred vision, UTI, and indigestion. She even convinced a surgeon to remove her healthy appendix, which was slow to heal because she couldn't stop messing with a surgical scar.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00:If she thought doctors were becoming suspicious of her behaviors, she would begin to doctor hop. And this pattern of self-ha self-harm or fictitious illness marked her adolescence. She became overweight, had bouts of depression, and was known to be attention-seeking and manipulative in interpersonal relationships. A boyfriend once described her as aggressive, manipulative, and deceptive.
SPEAKER_01:Fun time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:School records note that she attended a secondary modern school after failing the exam to get into the local grammar school. And at 16, she left full-time education and took a nursing course at Grantham College in 1987.
SPEAKER_01:Nursing, huh?
SPEAKER_00:A nursing, because why not? Who knows a hospital better than someone that wanted to spend all their time there?
SPEAKER_01:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00:Her training was also troubled from the start. She had an extremely high amount of absences, reportedly around 100 days absent in a two-year program due to claimed illnesses. But again, this is what she learned as a child. Feigning illnesses takes the pressure off of a person. And she didn't have the pressure of proving her brilliance in school when she received empathy for being ill. So she failed her nursing exams multiple times and was disciplined for unusual behaviors. Such as one nursing home placement reported that she smeared feces on the wall and placed human waste in the refrigerators for others to find. I'm not a psychologist, but come on. I'm not a psychologist, in my humble opinion. But despite the red flags, she was eventually qualified as a state-enrolled nurse.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, the what's the bar like for state enrolled nurses? If this is not a okay. No shade to those who are nurses now, but they must have had some lack of oversight or some like desperate.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we'll learn coming up kind of how she gets to sneak by some cracks. So by December of 1990, Beverly had secured a short-term contract at Grantham and Casseven Hospital in Lincolnshire, working on ward four, the children's ward. She was originally at Pilgrim Hospital at Boston, but because of sickness records showing 40 days sick in one year, she missed out on sick children nursing. So, like learning how to do that. So not only did her educational track record make her unqualified, in my opinion, in the first place, she certainly didn't have the skills or training to be working with these children.
SPEAKER_01:For sure.
SPEAKER_00:But Grantham Hospital was struggling for staff nurses, and so the doors were open for her to find a way to become a staff nurse there without any checks or balances. They didn't check sickness sickness records or references. So corners were cut because they needed another pair of hands, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01:I hate this.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm. Colleagues described Beverly as outwardly polite, helpful, and on top of things, very eager to volunteer for extra shifts. However, beneath that exterior lie a troubling pattern: frequent extra night duties, a keen interest in critical patients, and being alone with patients at times when collapses occurred. The hospital staff later noted that she seemed to thrive on being needed and being present at emergencies. And between February and April of 1991, a span of only 59 days, an exceptionally high and unusual number of critical incidents occurred in the children's ward of the Grantham and Castevan Hospital. The pattern included respiratory arrests, cardiac arrests, unexplained collapses, elevated potassium readings, insulin overdoses, and one large air bubble found in a child's body. But before we get further into that, it's time for a child. That just woke my dog up and she did not look impressed.
SPEAKER_01:That's because we're Allie Cats and you're not the dog.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Okay. Welcome to the Chart Note segment where we learn about what's happening in medicine and healthcare. On October 6th, 2025. So recent. Nope. Sekaguchi. Yep. Sekagucchi. Sorry, Shimon. I did that way better when I practiced. For uncovering how the immune system keeps itself in check. Working on opposite sides of the world, the three scientists help explain one of the body's greatest balancing acts, how it attacks harmful invaders while sparing its own healthy tissues. Their research focused on regulatory T cells or TREGs, a rare class of white blood cells that act as the immune system's peacekeepers. Sekaguchi first proposed their existence in Japan, showing that some T cells must suppress excessive immune reactions. Years later, Bronco and Ramsdell identified the gene behind that behavior, FOXP3, and proved what happens when it fails. Without FOXP3, the immune system loses control and begins attacking the body itself. This discovery reshapes modern immunology. By revealing how immune tolerance works, the Trio's research offered a new path to treat both autoimmune disease and cancer, conditions that stem from an immune system either too active or too restrained. Though no therapies based directly on their work have yet reached the clinic, more than 200 human trials are now underway exploring how to harness or adjust regulatory T cells. Biotech firms, including one led by Ramsdell, are developing new treatments for inflammatory bowel disease and other immune disorders that once seemed untreatable. Karolinska Institute announced the prize. It described their discovery as a cornerstone for future medicine. The three scientists, by teaching the world how the immune system knows when to fight and when to rest, open the door to a new era of precision healing.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, that's really exciting. Imagine those autoimmune diseases that there aren't any cure, like you know, MS and rheumatoid arthritis.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Oh my goodness. We're on the same wavelength.
SPEAKER_01:Not to mention cancer. So I look forward to seeing. It's funny because it if you say it fast, it's T-Rex, right? T Rex. So it's T Rex, not T Rex, that are gonna help with I like T-Rex though.
SPEAKER_00:We'd like to write an opinion.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Call it T-Rex. It's gonna rrrrr.
SPEAKER_01:It's gonna fight cancers, but yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, back to the story. So the rest of this is honestly just depressing. We're gonna focus on the victims, but again, it's not I don't know. It's not as bad as it could be, but it's it's important.
SPEAKER_01:We gotta touch on the victims. So we're gonna focus on them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then yeah. So hold on to your butts, guys.
SPEAKER_01:You got this. You got this.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Seven-week-old Liam Taylor was admitted to the children's ward with a chest infection. Beverly went out of her way to reassure his parents that he was in capable hands and persuaded them to go home and get some rest. When they returned, she told them that Liam had suffered respiratory emergency, but she recovered him. She volunteered for extra night duty that night so she could watch over the boy, which made the family feel really good that she was so dedicated to their son's care. The parents also chose to spend the night at the hospital. Liam had another respiratory crisis just before midnight, but it was agreed upon by all staff that he had come through satisfactorily. However, when Beverly was left alone with him, his condition worsened dramatically, becoming deathly pale before red blotches then appeared on his face. At which point, Beverly alerted the emergency resuscitation team. Liam suffered cardiac arrest despite all efforts made by the team. He also suffered severe brain damage and remained alive only by life support machines. His parents had to make the agonizing decision to remove their seven-week-old baby from life support, and his cause of death was recorded as heart failure.
SPEAKER_01:Poor baby angel.
SPEAKER_00:Only two weeks after Liam's death, Timothy Hardwick, an 11-year-old with cerebral palsy, was admitted following an epileptic episode. Beverly was assigned to his care, and again, following a period when she was alone with the boy, she alerted the emergency resuscitation team who found him without a pulse and turning blue. Despite all efforts, they were unable to revive him. An autopsy later failed to provide an obvious cause of death, but epilepsy was officially blamed. I'm here to set the record straight. That's not accurate. Five days later, with Beverly present, Kaylee went into cardiac arrest in the same bed where Liam Taylor had died a fortnight before. The resuscitation team were able to revive her and she was transferred to another hospital in Nottingham, where the attending physicians discovered an odd punctuation under her armpit. They also discovered an air bubble near the puncture mark, which they attributed to an accidental injection.
SPEAKER_01:How do you accidentally how old a one-year-old? How do you accidentally inject a one-year-old in the armpit? Okay. I'm getting mad.
SPEAKER_00:That's a good question. But unfortunately, no investigation was initiated.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:On March 20th, Paul Crampton was admitted to ward four at Grantham Hospital for a chest infection. His father, David, recalls of the ward that it seemed like a bright, happy, friendly place with drawings and things on the walls. There were, of course, moments of staff being rushed or moments of frantic action, but from what he could tell inside their hospital room, things were fine. Paul had been in for a few days, but on a Saturday, the family was told that he would be discharged the next day. David stepped out of Paul's room to grab something to eat from the hospital cafeteria. And when he returned, he found Paul laid in the arms of one of the nurses. Paul was described by David as cold, clammy, and lifeless. This nurse, yeah, I'm sure you guessed it, Nurse Alet. And she told David, this child is hypo, which he would later learn was a reference to hypoglycemia or low blood sugar. The doctor was called to the room and gave treatment, and then the family was invited back in the room. And when they went back in, Paul was sitting up and playing with his toes. It was clear to the family that the medical staff was struggling to figure out the cause for such an attack. There was no history of hypoglycemia, so they had no reason to believe that it would happen again. So then Sunday comes around, the day of planned discharge, and Beverly rushed into the room and noted that Paul was very clammy. She called for another nurse's assistance, and eventually Paul was stabilized. Medical staff still had no answers, and later that day, David once again stepped out of the room, and upon his return, he found Paul gray and clammy. Paul was then transferred to Queen's Medical Center in Nottingham by ambulance. Fun fact also, Beverly insisted that she be present during transport. Oh. And that's happened in a few of our episodes now. That's so bizarre.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:So David had reported that the environment at QMC was much different. The staff were calm and confident, and Paul was stabilized and rested well in the ICU. He got better very quickly and was soon released from the hospital. But the family was understandably nervous upon discharge because they still had no answers as to why the hypoglycemic attacks were happening in the first place.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:The following day, five-year-old Bradley Gibson, who was admitted for pneumonia, went into unexpected cardiac arrest. Luckily, the resuscitation team were successful in their attempts to revive him. Subsequent blood tests showed that his insulin was high, which made no sense to attending physicians. He suffered yet another heart attack later that night and was transferred to Nottingham, where he successfully recovered. On March 22nd, two-year-old Yik Hung Chan turned blue and appeared in considerable distress when Beverly alerted other staff. Luckily, he responded well to oxygen and seemingly recovered. But soon after, he suffered another attack, which resulted in him being transferred to that larger hospital in Nottingham, where he recovered. His symptoms were attributed to a fractured skull, which was said to be a result of a fall.
SPEAKER_01:So he did he wasn't admitted for a fractured skull.
SPEAKER_00:No. Oh sure wasn't. Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy. Just like don't even let your mind wander, you know. So next were twins, Katie and Becky Phillips, just three months old, who were kept in for observation as a result of premature delivery. The twins were discharged, but Becky found her way back to the ward on April 1st due to gastroenteritis. After being in the ward for two days, Beverly once again sounded the alarm that she needed assistance. She claimed Becky appeared hypoglycemic and cold to the touch. But nothing was found on examination and Becky was discharged home. During the night, Becky went into convulsions and was crying out in apparent pain. Her parents called the doctor who suggested she must have colic. The parents kept her in their bed with them so that they would be close, and unfortunately, she died during the night.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:Despite an autopsy, no clear cause of death was determined, and it was documented to be a cot death. As a precaution, her surviving twin Katie was admitted to the hospital for observation. Having just lost one of their children, they requested a nurse to be with her at all times.
SPEAKER_01:Oh no. Oh no, tell me it's not her.
SPEAKER_00:It wasn't long before Beverly was summoning the team to revive baby Katie, who had stopped breathing while she was feeding her.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_00:Revival efforts were successful, but just two days later, she suffered another attack and was then transferred to Nottingham. While there, they discovered that five of her ribs were broken and she suffered significant brain damage as a result of oxygen deprivation.
SPEAKER_02:Oh no.
SPEAKER_00:To add insult to injury, Katie's mother, Sue Phillips, was so grateful to Beverly for having saved her baby's life that she asked her to be Katie's godmother. So when they when they brought Katie back to the hospital, she was already Katie's godmother. And then she still went and did this.
unknown:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01:I I'm just there's a special place in hell for this woman. I what a monster. This poor, poor family.
SPEAKER_00:I know. So like I said, of course, Beverly accepted the role of godmother, despite having afflicted partial paralysis, cerebral palsy, vision and hearing damage to Katie. But this cold truth was only known to Beverly at this point. Daniel Swannick was admitted to ward four for asthma. His father, Paul, said of the ward, I thought it was a magical place. I really did. The staff were absolutely brilliant, very friendly. It was a heartwarming place to go into, and there was more hope than sad. After a few days of his son being admitted, he and his wife at the time noticed that the staff started being becoming irritable and that people were running around like headless chickens, he said. They didn't think too much into it because they weren't aware of anything that was going on outside of their own room, but they certainly knew that the morale had gone down. Soon Daniel was starting to get better, and staff were removing his IVs, preparing him for discharge. Daniel's mother, who was a smoker, planned to step outside for a quick heater, but stopped by the playroom and asked one of the nurses if she could keep an eye on Daniel while she stepped out, to which the nurse agreed. While outside, she got a horrible feeling in her gut and decided to go back inside. She found that Daniel was missing from the playroom. She rushed it rushed to his room and found a nurse, nurse Beverly Alet, administering medication. No, no, no, she begged. She stated her son did not need medication and that they were being discharged. She arrived to the room just in time.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Beverly stomped her stupid fucking little feet and exited the room.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh. That mother's instinct for this woman.
SPEAKER_00:Talk about a mama intuition.
SPEAKER_01:That was just touch and go. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00:Four more victims followed. Michael Davidson, Christopher Peasgood, Christopher King, and Patrick Ellstone. It wasn't until victim number 13, Claire Peck, that suspicions started to rise. Claire was a 15-month-old who was an asthmatic that required a breathing tube. She had suffered an attack at home and unfortunately wasn't getting better, prompting the admission to Ward 4. While in Beverly's care for mere minutes, she suffered a heart attack. The resuscitation team was successful in reviving her, but it happened again later when Claire was alone with Beverly that she suffered a second attack. She unfortunately would not survive the second attack. Her autopsy indicated that she had died from natural causes, but an inquiry was initiated by Dr. Nelson Porter, a consultant at the hospital, because of the high number of cardiac arrests in the children's ward over a two-month period. An airborne virus was suspected to be the culprit initially, but nothing was found. A test came back that revealed high levels of potassium in baby Claire's blood, which begged the decision to loop in local authorities 18 days later. Claire's body was exhumed and they discovered traces of lignocaine in her system, a drug used during cardiac arrest, but there was no documentation that this was ever given to Claire.
SPEAKER_01:Oh wow, Amanda. First of all, well done getting through this. Thank you. I just I I'm I'm in I'm just absolutely horrified and disgusted. I'm glad that we're breaking this up because I want to spend next week hearing about hopefully some form of justice, although justice could never bring these poor children and their those who were alive but injured can never rectify that.
SPEAKER_00:13 victims about a 14th next week.
SPEAKER_01:But 13 victims in one hospital. So earlier you said it was k it was Grantham and then Kent Kentiswick or some other things.
SPEAKER_00:Grantham and Castevin hospital.
SPEAKER_01:So so it's one hospital, it's not two different hospitals. Okay. So I was like, how, but still, so that's even more of a like to me a red flag. Like I could understand if she was hospital bouncing, why it wouldn't seem to stack up. But 13 and it and she wasn't there for that long.
SPEAKER_00:Of course, like as you know, when we do research, some resources say one thing, some resource sources say another, but it seemed like most all of them were transferred to that same hospital in Nottingham. Or like, I don't know how many. They must have the ICU or yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it's like nothing was tipped off there either. Like, wow, Grantham and Cust Devon send in a lot of beads over here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:My goodness.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but also we're in the early 90s. Things are different now.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there's not that seamless. Well, first of all, we don't have electronic medical records as a known thing, right? I mean, I'm trying to remember first time I used one. It was late 90s. So there's not that sharing of information. It's the the handoff is probably a lot less and more just like preserve life not right now, not who was the nurse in the except when she's riding in the flipping ambulance with the child.
SPEAKER_00:I know. I'm like, and that was after a few had already been transferred there. So I was kind of wondering like, was she thinking, Am I gonna get caught? I have to like go with so I can cover my booty on the way and kind of like fabricate a story, like look at it.
SPEAKER_01:I think she wanted to inject them with a little more lignocaine or whatever, potassium, whatever she was doing to create these whichever one she was doing to that child.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Outside of, I don't know, breaking their bones.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so that's the other horrific piece to this is she's physically amazing want to vomit. I feel nauseated. I can't imagine how you feel with a little one on board. She was physically abusing them, not just with medication, but physical abuse.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if I wrote this in what what in here if I read it or not, but like one of the babies had fractured ribs. You did, and then the head injury or skull fracture. Yeah. The fractured ribs were literally just from her squeezing the baby so hard. Like, how do you do that to a baby?
SPEAKER_01:Anybody, but yeah, and you're in a trusted position. And the fact that that evil little twist of of on her part of accepting this godmother role.
SPEAKER_00:I know that killed killed one twin and maimed the other for life.
SPEAKER_01:I just I want to cry, I want to spit, I want to punch something. So, like I said, I'm glad we're stopping here before things get filing up in my end because I'm so upset. But you know what? Shout out to Dr. Porter because finally I and I assume I assume it's a major I know Nottingham is huge, so no, that was where they were transferred to. So I don't know if Grantham.
SPEAKER_00:So Grantham is like I looked this up. I feel like it was only like 13 miles from Nottingham.
SPEAKER_01:But in terms of like the size of the the si how many beds, the size of the hospital, like that there was just a lot going on to where a pattern like this didn't emerge because of the traffic coming through sooner.
SPEAKER_00:Who knows if like even a Google search would yield accurate like in 1991 was the hospital size the same? Did they add on?
SPEAKER_01:Like Yeah, I'm just gonna go with it wasn't picked up sooner because it was huge and Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:When you think when people arrive by ambulance, like you go to the ER first and then you get triaged to wherever you need to go. So that also could have been a blinder for red flags, right? I mean, if they don't all end up in the same pick you, nick you, I see you, whatever. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I'm fascinated with her early childhood. I wonder what the impetus was for like normal it starts what started out as a normal childhood behavior and then turned into an obsession and a fascination with her.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like she fell one day and was like, ooh, somebody like m look at this. Was she a neglected child and she realized she had a lot more attention? Like, were things just busy and she didn't get the attention she needed?
SPEAKER_00:And I mean Yeah, I don't know. Because again, by all accounts, nice family, nice village. I don't know. But there is stuff that I did research on that I'll share next week from a criminologist.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay, cool.
SPEAKER_00:And um a psychologist. So we'll like get into that stuff later.
SPEAKER_01:I just want to say one more thing before we move on to happier things, or hopefully the medical mishap is funny, but maybe it's not. I don't know. Okay, so a lot of this stuff it was started out as normal-ish and then got a little weird, like you know, exaggerating stuff. Like, oh, she's a little cuckoo. Some kids do that still, though, and don't turn out to be vile, like she did. But I'm sorry, as a family, if your child is catheterizing herself first and injecting water into her breast, I don't care how old she is, but it sounds like it was pretty young. That's immediately a hundred red flags, and let's get the child some help. And also kind of screams like, did she have a history of sexual abuse? Like, did somebody abuse her?
SPEAKER_00:Right, right.
SPEAKER_01:But anyway, so that's my not I'm not a psychologist, but if I put a psychologist hat on, I'm like, hmm, something happened around that time.
SPEAKER_00:You're like, these are the questions I would be asking. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Also, because you know this is how our brains work, but like when I'm like going reading through a case, my brain sometimes starts thinking about other things. And so I thought about this when I was reading, and I don't want to forget to say, I should have said at the beginning, but very nice work editing the last episode as well, because you usually just have our two tracks, but you had to merge three tracks and edit, and I know it took you a lot longer, so good job.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, thank you. Listen, I also look I'm looking forward to me sounding less like an elderly woman in need of an oxygen tank this week. There was a lot of me coughing and wheezing like what are those old aunts on The Simpsons, you know, the that smoke and they're like, you know, I felt like that was me, but anyway, at least you guys pulled up the uh level of quality of of voice.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I think Shannon just really drove it home. Everyone was very impressed with Shannon's speaking voice.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Which is very good, Shannon. They are not wrong.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, no, no, we love you, but we're also a little bit like, oh.
SPEAKER_00:But like all those things sound good. Better. Oh my gosh. Way to show us up. But to quote Taylor Swift, there wouldn't have been this if there hadn't been you, Shannon. Aww. Yes. Okay, so sponsor number two, coffee company. They offer premium instant blends that combine convenience with health benefits. Their standout black fair trade instant coffee delivers a smooth, robust flavor while adding 15 grams of protein, five grams of MCTs, and 250 milligrams of adaptogens like ashwagandha and theanine. Do you remember the first time we did this? And I tried to read it.
SPEAKER_01:I was just thinking that we were like, as it was, ha ha. I was like, blah blah blah, I can't read. Tiananine? And now I know, and now look at me. You're just you're killing it, lady. I'm like, I don't even need this script, okay?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Uh this formula provides lasting energy, sharper focus, calm without jitters, and even supports better sleep and mental clarity. Ideal for busy professionals. For a creamier option, they have a latte blend that has organic arabica coffee with protein, collagen, hyaluronic acid, and healthy fats to fuel both body and mind. My brain like skipped ahead five words, and then I had to try and fill in the blanks. So sorry about that. Oh, you're committed to quality and eco-friendly practices. Strong coffee delivers great taste, quick convenience, and a nutritious boost to your daily routine. Use our code StaySuspicious at strongcoffeecompany.com for 20% off your order. I'm like scrolling back up because did I say what it I didn't even say what the squant the squantum, the quantum squares discount is. Obviously the code is stay suspicious, but I feel like it's 30%. I didn't say though. I'll put it in the correction section next week.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, have a look if you go to quantumsquares.com. It'll tell you. I I it's uh it's 20%, I think, or 30%. Like it's a really good only our listeners exclusive discount. So we'll look that up and you know if we if we'd done some research.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my goodness, you guys, I really should have had it. You know what, Jenna? I have a correction section. Yay! There's a first time we're going. Oh god. Okay, well.
SPEAKER_01:Did your dog just fart? Okay, sorry, I just thought look on her face and I was like, did I is that something I said? No, no, it's Raven.
SPEAKER_00:No, I'm just like getting gassed out.
SPEAKER_01:Whoo, sister. Maybe, maybe Raven would benefit from a quantum square.
SPEAKER_00:Yikes.
SPEAKER_01:Gotta love dogs.
SPEAKER_00:We should get a sponsor for listen up, sponsors out there. We should get a sponsor for like dogs with IBS. Oh, yeah. Dog vitamins or like Yeah. Because that kind of stuff is so expensive.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, let's reach out to us, sponsors. We're we're up for it. We like you. We have dogs.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We do, we do.
SPEAKER_00:We like animals. I would love to. We're bouncing off the rails here. Do you want to do our medical mishap? Yeah. Alright. Well, let's let's it starts out.
SPEAKER_01:Hey Jenna. I see the words bowel rejection, so that's good. Speaking of farts, bowels. Raven has gave us a great segue into this medical mishap. It starts out. Hey Jenna and Amanda, longtime listener, first time emailer here. I'm an RN in a mid-sized hospital on a med surge floor, and I swear every shift gives me at least one story worthy of your podcast. Oh well, we want to hear more from you, Miss Listener. We'll start with this one, they say. It was a hectic Friday evening, the kind where every bed was full. Every IV pump was beeping, and I was running on caffeine and adrenaline. My patient, an elderly gentleman recovering from a bowel resection, was finally stable enough to be transferred to a rehab facility. Things were going smoothly until transport arrived early. Suddenly I was in a mad dash to get him cleaned up, medicated, and packed for transfer. He had dentures soaking in a cup by the sink, and as I was tidying up the room I decided to empty the basin and clear the area. Oh, clean the area. I placed the dentures on a washcloth so that I could rinse out the cup, multitasking as nurses do, and then someone called my name from the hallway. Without thinking, I grabbed what was on the counter, including the dentures, wrapped in that cloth, shoved it in my and shoved it in my scrub pocket to deal with later. Fast forward about twenty minutes, the patient was dressed, paperwork signed, and transport had wheeled him out. I was patting my pockets looking for looking for a pen when I felt something hard, oddly shaped, and slightly damp. I pulled out the washcloth and nearly screamed when I saw the dentist staring back at me like some sort of macabre puppet. I sprinted down the hall towards transport, praying they hadn't left yet. I just imagined this nurse screaming down the hall, your teeth, your teeth, go back. Wait, your teeth. Hold them. Of course the elevator doors were closing just as I reached the end of the corridor. I waved those dentures in the air like a oh I was right, I hadn't even read it yet. I waved those dentures in the air like a lunatic, yelling the patient's name. One of the transport techs saw me and mercifully hit the door open button. I handed over the dentures like I was passing a sacred relic. The patient thought it was hilarious, luckily. I laughed, but internally I was mortified. To this day, my coworkers still joke about me being the tooth thief. It's like the opposite of the tooth very funny. But also, how do people not realize they don't have their teeth in their mouth? Anyway, the lesson learned. Check your pockets and your mouth before you clock out or leave the hospital. Thanks for letting me share my embarrassing moment, and thanks for making a podcast that helps us laugh at the chaos that is healthcare. Sincerely, a very flustered RN who now double checks everything. Oh, well, thank you, flustered, for listen, you're not alone. You talked about multitasking. Oh man, I don't know how you nurses do it. I had a million different obligations. They got it from both ends. The doctors, the the patients themselves, the family members. It's it's quite a juggling act. Yeah. Every angle. Yeah, bless our nurses with the exception of the evil villain in this story. Yeah. But it's yeah. Most of y'all are angels. So next week we are going to hear the outcome of this horrific career. And meanwhile, do you have anything else to say before we close up? Okay. No.
unknown:No.
SPEAKER_01:Don't miss a beat. Subscribe or follow Doctoring the Truth wherever you enjoy your podcast for stories that shock, intrigue, and educate. Trust, after all, is a delicate thing. You can text us directly on our website at doctoringthetruth at buzzsprout.com or email us your story ideas at doctoringthetruth at gmail.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Doctoring the Truth Podcast and on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth. We're on TikTok at Doctoring the Truth and Ed Od Pod. Don't forget to download, rate, and review so we can be sure to bring you more content next week. Until then, stay safe and stay sub. Goodbye. Goodbye.
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